Unconditional cooperation

Unconditional cooperation

Greetings Master! Greetings fellow practitioners! I am honoured to be here to share with you.

The Gala came to Europe on a large scale this spring. Many of us were involved and many of us participated, anticipating good results. Yet the outcome this year was far from good in most places. How could this happen to us? What did we not understand? Where did all our effort go? I am still unable to enlighten to all the lessons we should have learnt from.

The 2009 tour is now approaching and this time we were asked whether we could manage to cooperate unconditionally, each every one of us. Only then could we be able to ask for DPA to come to our countries. To meet this standard required maturity in all levels of our cultivation.

As one of the main coordinators for Sweden, I would like to share from the coordinators perspective, lessons learnt and lessons I have still to over come.

My father took giving names quite seriously, so for all his children he chose them very carefully. Korean names, similar to Chinese names, have deeper inner meanings and mine is combination of brotherhood and kindness. As a child I heard that my personality was much like my name as I cared for people and was kind. Even before I was 10 years old I liked to listen to cultivation stories or stories with morality and lessons. Perhaps my life was influence by these sayings from the elders.

In high school I was voted as the most friendly and most popular. I was also voted for student council and did not lack any friends. All the attention I got didn't surprise me and it just felt it natural for it to be this way.

As a young adult, I had some recurring thoughts in which I wanted to go home in this life but I did not know where to go or what home I was thinking about. I thought I was born with a mission to save people, but could not say that to anyone. What would people think of me if they knew my inner thoughts of looking at myself as having a similar role as Jesus? This thought even scared me. So I tried not to think at all. I became a social worker thinking perhaps that is to save people. I also knew I had to find my Master, without him I could not make it home, but the time and years passed fast and my questions were still going unanswered.

Then Master (Mr. Li Hongzhi the founder of Falun Gong) came to Sweden in 1995, even before I saw Masters picture I knew this was my Master and that he has finally come. Of course I was extremely happy. But cultivation is not a simple matter. From the beginning I did not understand even the basic cultivation process. I quickly started to have xinxing (character) tests with other practitioners but I did not understand the reason for or enlighten to these tests. Instead I started to go less and less to group practices and eventually avoided them all together. I did not try to find the cause of the conflicts by examining my character but only looked outwards and thought badly of other practitioners. I could not even pass one of the first obstacles in my cultivation. Worse still, I did not even realise the situation I was in.

But of course Master cares for us and guides the way. My first real step I took in cultivation came 3 years later in New York, 98. I was in my first Fahui (experience sharing conference) but did not understand the purpose of the Fahui or why I should listen to all the practitioners who were sharing there. I was bored with them and only wanted to have a glimpse of Master. I just sat there uninterested until the Fahui came to its near end. I suddenly noticed that my body became very comfortably warm and it softly rotated. I got the sudden realization that I was a very arrogant person, who did not think that he could learn from others. That was why I was so bored there and did not wanted to listen to all the sharing’s. It came as such a shock because I always thought I was a kind and a humble person. So right there I had to question the whole perception of myself that I had carried all my life.

A second realization came on the same day, right after the Fahui. Everyone stayed on. There were so many practitioners there and everyone was so enthusiastically and happily talking to each other. I sat down there alone among them but not with them. I did not feel I was one of them. Then suddenly I knew where my arrogance came from. It came from when I was lonely as a teenager in boarding schools, in new countries or new situations, where I did not get any adult guidance or attention. I basically grew up wild from then on and just had to rely on my own judgments. No wonder I had difficulty trusting others.

That evening a smaller group of practitioners from Europe had chance to meet Master in person. I sat there and could not stop crying for a long time. I felt I had failed as practitioner. How could I not understand anything at all? I was truly disappointed in myself. But after a while I looked up at Master and saw Master looking at me. There I experienced one more strong feeling, compassion! I thought I heard Master say in my inner ear only meant for me: “I have compassion for you! Why do you not have it for your self?”. What? I thought. Can I forgive my self?

This was the first genuine step that I took in my cultivation path. Since then I have again and again met my arrogant self, understood its cause, forgiven and let it go in compassion. When I see some of the coordinators have similar attachments like me, I try to understand and remember that they are like me, are cultivators of Dafa and I should never judge them harshly no matter what. Master does not look at our attachments but only looks at our inner heart of wanting to save sentient beings.

Last fall when we started working on coordination for the gala in Sweden one incident gave me a stronger xinxing test than others. I didn't know some of the practitioners in our coordinator team so well. There was a particular practitioner with whom I had never made efforts to get to know even though he started to cultivate long before the persecution began. I also had some notions about him. But now we needed to work together. Not long after we started we had some disagreements over an issue with which I was pretty sure of being right. We had many meetings regarding this issue and other coordinators also agreed with my viewpoint. After I learnt this I thought we had all come to a mutual decision about which direction to head the project down.

But a few weeks later I found out that this issue did not go as we had all agreed. I took this very personally and wrote the practitioner an angry email that said I was so disappointed in him and that I cannot trust him at all from now on. And I got a pretty long email back that pointed out my shortcomings as he saw it. It made me even angrier so I started to write an email back. My intentions of course were very human. But I have learnt over the years that whenever emotions are at play I should not answer any email back straight away. I have regretted many times for not being able to wait and let my emotions cool down. So I did not send my e-mail that day.

The next day I looked at my e-mail with a little less anger and of course I realised I could not send it that way so I started to rewrite. For few days I rewrote it. But as time went I started to ask my self if my e-mail would help us to cooperate or would it only justify my own notions? Had I thought about the whole thing from his point of view? In the end I wrote a very short e-mail in which I thanked him for his efforts and I genuinely meant it. The email was full of hope and understanding because it came from my heart. This xinxing test helped me to see his heart of saving sentient beings. Our xinxing test did not end there but I have truly learned to appreciate what ever he does and know that his efforts are from his heart. I joke sometimes that he gave me a painful xinxing test but he is still my best friend. Perhaps he does not understand that I truly mean this.

After this incident I was so confident that I could cooperate unconditionally with anyone no matter what. I thought I had passed this test. I now know that we can never stop cultivating. This year I have started with the gala work again I have met with several difficult xinxing tests that involve some of us in the coordination group. This time one of the coordinators who has given me the most difficult tests so far is one who is very near me. We have worked together closely so many times over the years and know each other very well. But because of her I have cried a few times already. This time it is not feeling of disappointment, this time it is feeling of emotional pain because I didn't know how she could misunderstand me when she knows me so well. Of course all these different emotions that come with xinxing conflicts cannot weigh us down no matter what. We can over come them with the righteous thoughts that we have for each other. We are all Dafa disciples, we all have the same Master and we all want to save sentient beings. And so I believe compassion can only grow in us.

Many years ago in front of UN buildings in Geneva, more than a thousand practitioners gathered there to show their presence and do the exercises. Whilst there I suddenly remembered a childhood story of an ox that I had forgotten completely for all these years. It was about a tireless ox who worked in the field everyday so very dutifully. After work one evening while the ox rested, different parts of his body started to chat. All the parts were speaking, the mouth, the ears, the eyes, the belly, the legs and even the tail. The conversation was about who was the most important of them all. The mouth said that “without me the ox will go hungry”. "But", said the eye, "If I do not see then how will the ox find food? Well, "The ox can’t go anywhere without me" said the legs, even the tail wanted to be a part and said that without it chasing away the filthy fly's, the ox will surely get infections. I am important they said... No I am important... No I am... the argument went on and on and was endless. The next morning the eye refused to see, the legs refused to walk and the mouth refused to eat. Day after day all the parts refused to cooperate. And the ox became weaker and weaker until it was near its death. One morning a very weak voice said, "we need to cooperate, if not the ox will surely die". All agreed, every part started to do their own job and soon the ox recovered and went out to work in the field.

When I remembered this story that day I thought that one day all the Dafa practitioners would play their parts to the full and make most beautiful piece of music together.

I believe then and still do that this story came back to me that day as a reminder. We are most honoured and fortunate beings. This time we have got another chance to really prove that Dafa practitioners can indeed cooperate unconditionally and think and move like one body. Which part any one of us play is not important as long as we ourselves understand that we all are needed.

My fellow practitioners! Let's do it well together! Let the vows we made to save all the sentient beings, be the only concerns in our hearts. They are waiting for us out there.

Thank you all for being here.

Thank you Master.